Monday, December 18, 2017

Designing the Sounds of Mega Man 11

If I wasn't a teacher, I'd be a Foley artist. So I'm pretty jealous about today's Game Informer Mega Man 11 feature, which introduces us to the game's audio director/Foley artist Ryo Yoshii. Yoshii is creating audio for the game using real-world sounds; a first for the Mega Man franchise.

“Because the visuals have been updated, it’s a more 3D look and a little
more realistic, we figured that incorporating previous sounds wouldn’t
jive well with the visuals," said Yoshii. "We didn’t want there to be a disconnect, so we felt that in order to
match the visuals we needed to make sure that the audio was a little
more modernized. We didn’t want to just use synthesized sounds. We
wanted to mix it with Foley work to create a more authentic sound.”

Four short (but very entertaining) videos at Game Informer show off this process. In the first video, for example, Yoshii uses a real hard-hat to design the sound for the Mets. Once the desired raw audio is found, Yoshii dumps it in a synthesizer to create a futuristic sound.

Though I was hesitant at first from hearing this news, I was pleasantly surprised by what they're planning. They are putting a lot of love and care into this. That makes me very happy and makes me think that this will be one great game. Now, I'm curious about the story. With all the big changes, I hope they bring us a deep and detailed story that is interesting and exciting. I know it's not the X series, but it would be nice to have a story with some substance.